The methodology of place – in between local tradition and the development of place in kindergartens for the future

KINDknow WP 7

The main objective of this work-package is to develop a place related methodology together with children and staff in kindergarten; in order to linking sustainable issues to children’s everyday practices in the environment, they are situated. This includes cultural heritage, Sami local tradition, nature, memory, materiality, time, weather conditions and outdoor locations.

Drawing on theories of the temporality of place, a “throwntogetherness” between past and present, geography, people and "more-than-human, we investigate how children are being shaped by the environment they inhabit in, as much as they shape their environments. This means that place is never finished or complete. Place is always under construction as it is (re)constituted through new interactions, new practices and new processes. Examining the entanglements between children and the environment, they are situated in, can offers new perspectives of how places affect and shape children’s experiences and it can frame how they want to navigate their lives.

The purpose is to investigate the explicit effect of an environment, in order to understand human-environment relations that also involve more-than-human actors. To involve more-than-humans actors and the temporality of place, we will together with children, staff and students, explore practices and arrange workshops and seminars in different local environments, weather conditions and in different seasons in the northern part of Norway. Environmental Art, photos and digital storytelling will be employed as performative tools in the methodological approach.

This WP will undertake the following sets of tasks:

Conduct an initial survey to gain background knowledge regarding kindergarten practices related to the use of local culture and environments and a follow-up survey to identify changes in kindergartens practices and children’s experiences of local culture and environments

Explore how local museums and cultural heritage can be fields for development of cultural sustainability

Investigate how kindergarten-practices in local environments, within different seasons and weather conditions, constitute children`s belonging to their local places

Explore what role different seasons make for children’s embodied and emplaced knowledge in kindergarten

Investigate how digital storytelling and Environmental Art can contribute to children‘s attachment to local environments, different seasons and places